Quick Reviews: Kim Tae-woo, Kim Kyung-ho, and Oak Joo-hyun
Kim Tae-woo – T-Love
Release: February 20, 2013
Producer/Distributor: Soul Shop Entertainment/Loen Entertainment
Genre: Pop
Reviewer Rating:
This biennial “T-something” series is at its third installment now. I’m not sure if it carries any thematic meaning any more, but T-Love is filled with love songs, so I guess there’s that. I docked some points from T-School two years ago for basically carbon-copying T-Virus (2009)’s lead single, and the good news is that Kim Tae-woo didn’t copy himself this time. Unfortunately, all these allegations seem to suggest he (or his producers) at least heavily referenced somebody else instead. The comparisons of 또또 (Again) to Cee Lo Green‘s F**k You seems persuasive enough to me – at the very least, I think there’s been a reference (all the way down to the arrangement), and it’s not insignificant. Now, the link between Cosmic Girl and Olly Murs‘ Troublemaker sounds a little more tenuous; it’s reminiscent of Troublemaker, but the songs are different enough. LOVEcoaster, of course, is a licensed remake.
The fact that Kim didn’t plagiarize doesn’t mean these similarities are good, though. When three-fifths of your album directly reminds people of someone else’s work, that’s an effective loss of ownership over the album. Cosmic Girl is still a good song – it’s got flash and is catchy, and Kim is terrific at recognizing what fits his voice and what doesn’t. But it means little if listeners cannot hear Kim in the song. Kim has the talent, polish, and history to be a cornerstone of the pop-ballad scene; we still remember path-breaking 사랑비 (Love Rain). So it’s unfortunate to see the man keep taking these missteps.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. 또또 (Again)
2. Cosmic Girl
3. 오빠 (Oppa) – With Megan Lee
4. LOVEcoaster
5. 언제나, 어디든 (Whenever, Wherever)
Kim Kyung-ho – 共存 (공존) (Coexistence) Part 01: Sunset
Release: February 22, 2013
Producer/Distributor: Production Yi Hwang/SK Communications
Genre: Rock ballad
Reviewer Rating:
Shouting and growling is, for the most part, noticeably absent from Kim Kyung-ho‘s tenth studio album. Four of Coexistence Part 01: Sunset‘s six tracks are soft-edged ballads, and Kim shows just how delicate his voice can sound. He high-keys his way through gently rolling melodies and laid-back instrumentals, the best of both coming together in lead single 사랑이 들린다면 (If You Can Hear Love). When the composition holds up (which isn’t always the case), this new-look Kim Kyung-ho sounds great.
That said, I think I still prefer a little steel in Kim’s performance. 달의 눈물 (Tears of the Moon) is more like it: this is 90s power ballad at its finest, featuring a no-nonsense melody, rousing growl, just the right amount of melancholia, and complete with a somewhat cheesy title. In all seriousness, it’s good to hear this kind of rock ballad brought back, even for a track – with the likes of Kim Jong-suh and Park Wan-gyu moving away from hard rock, there’s virtually no one left who’s both capable and willing. Get On Your Feet closes out the album with straight rock ‘n’ roll, albeit with Kim still not unleashing his full range. Given all this, the album’s title seems to ring true: Kim Kyung-ho is mapping out his future as a balladeer while keeping a pulse on his rock roots.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. 사랑이 들린다면 (If You Can Hear Love)
2. 너를 기다려 (Wait for You)
3. 다짐 (Vow)
4. 노을 (Sunset)
5. 달의 눈물 (Tears of the Moon)
6. Get on Your Feet
Oak Joo-hyun – Reflection
Release: February 28, 2013
Producer/Distributor: LOMO/Loen Entertainment
Genre: Ballad; pop ballad
Reviewer Rating:
Oak Joo-hyun is back, and her voice has grown richer with expressive folds. Her operatic style, apparent even from her first solo work Nan (2003), has been tempered through a lengthy theater career and presented again in an I Am A Singer stint. Reflection makes sure to put this strength of Oak’s at the forefront; it’s filled with dramatic tracks driven by heavy-handed composition and Oak’s invested performances. The catch is that the drama is often suffocatingly overdone. It feels even more pressed for grandeur than JeA‘s recent EP, especially in tracks like lead single 그림자 놀이 (Shadow Game). The waltz rhythm and dark melody give the song flavor, but the pacing feels a bit rushed and the lyrics overdone.
When Oak and the producers (including genre specialists Jung Suk-won and Shin Jae-hong) tone it back a little, though, the album shines. 집 (Home) may have more pedestrian sound, but it handles scale with impressive subtlety and without blowing it out of proportion. Oak’s relaxed performance is just as, if not more, powerful and operatic as its Shadow Game counterpart. (It’s the perfect balance that she achieved in Catch (2004), in ballad form.) Apart from this, I think Reflection tries a little too hard, but that’s not all bad. The EP ends up with plenty of ear candy as a result, and I’d take ‘tried too hard’ over ‘didn’t try enough’ any day.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. 아빠 배게 (Dad’s Pillow)
2. 그림자 놀이 (Shadow Game)
3. 집 (Home)
4. 지혈 (Hemostasis)
5. 아빠 배게 (Dad’s Pillow) – Instrumental
6. 그림자 놀이 (Shadow Game) – Instrumental
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the reviewer and not of hellokpop as a whole.
Agree or disagree? Or have a recent release that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know with your comments below! Requested albums will be considered each week and may be selected to be reviewed in the subsequent week.
Quick Reviews: eAeon, JeA, and Orosy
eAeon – Realize
Release: December 26, 2012
Producer/Distributor: Elephant Music/Sony Music
Genre: Indie pop; acoustic
Reviewer Rating:
Guilt-Free was a masterpiece (indeed, it was our Best Dance/Electronica Album of 2012), but it did have the side effect of being so overwhelmingly depressing to the point where you questioned whether the artist was mentally healthy. eAeon is back with a lighter-hearted EP this time around, first in lyrical themes and also in sound. In the former, the differences are not sweeping; you hear things like My Little Piggy, which is surprisingly charming with some adorable diction to boot, but on the whole eAeon still sings of loneliness, rejection, and brokenness. The sonic differences are very significant, however.
Realize is entirely acoustic, crafted only with analog instruments; if you recall, this is the exact opposite of Guilt-Free and its entirely synthetically sculpted sounds. eAeon proves himself as deft with this extreme of the spectrum as he is with the other. The striking piano-driven hook of 자랑 (Boast) and the constantly shifting, inexplicably dynamic rhythm of the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger remake are memorable examples, but perhaps the best testament to the artist’s skill set is the two remixed Guilt-Free tracks included here. I thought the original Bulletproof could hardly be improved upon, but this tender remake almost has me thinking that it’s the proper way to do this song. The palpably lonely guitar intro, originally made of heavy and dragging synths, is already promising, but the track realizes hitherto-untapped potential when the muffled drums and soft bass enter the chorus. It’s not the instrumentation or genre that makes eAeon’s work great; the man simply knows how to press all the right buttons to make us feel.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. My Little Piggy
2. 자랑 (Boast)
3. Bulletproof
4. Harder Better Faster Stronger [sic]
5. Heaven Song
6. 세상이 끝나려고 해 (The World Is About to End)
JeA – Just JeA
Release: January 4, 2013
Producer/Distributor: Nega Network/Loen Entertainment
Genre: Pop, ballad
Reviewer Rating:
Who would have thought JeA would become the last Brown Eyed Girl to release a solo work? The group’s most refined vocalist decided to play her debut EP somewhat safe, collecting mellow pop numbers and tastes of R&B to accompany the ballad centerpiece. There really isn’t a more appropriate word to call lead single 그대가 잠든 사이 (While You Sleep); it’s another big-scale, five-plus-minute ballad in that trademark Jung Suk-won style. It wouldn’t feel out of place in a Lena Park collection, with its emphatic usage of orchestra sets and dramatically ramping suspense, and by their very nature these things tend to be quite good listens.
My impression, though, is that While You Sleep isn’t the best it could be. JeA’s performance is great and the song has lots of cool theatrical devices, but these two things don’t quite mesh up fully. The track’s got plenty of power, but it lacks that picture-perfect chemistry that Lee Ga-hee enjoyed with 밀 (Secret) (2001) and IU enjoyed with 비밀 (also Secret) (2011). While You Sleep is still a good work, it doesn’t reach the (admittedly lofty) heights of 꿈에 (In Dreams) (2004), the classic that it appears to benchmark.
The rest of the album is interesting, if not supremely engaging outside of creamy mid-tempo number 안아보자 (Let’s Embrace). You won’t find Eric Benét singing in (brief) Korean anywhere other than here, and Silent Stalker is built on a delicious concept – an explosive love melody framed in cold, clinical club synths. They do their job, conveying JeA’s ability to navigate a wide spectrum of pop with relative ease. What she really wants to do, however, remains to be seen.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. Days & Nights – Featuring Eric Benét
2. 길고양이 (Stray Cat)
3. 그대가 잠든 사이 (While You Sleep)
4. 안아보자 (Let’s Embrace) – Featuring Jung-yup
5. Silent Stalker – Featuring Double K
Orosy – Wonderland
Release: January 7, 2013
Producer/Distributor: Orosy/Mirrorball Music
Genre: Indie rock, ballad
Reviewer Rating:
There’s a little Rumble Fish, a little Sangsang Band, and even a little Bebe Mignon in Orosy (formerly Rosy)’s debut EP. On the one hand, that means she’s doing something right: those are pretty good names to be following up on. On the other, it means that Wonderland is a tad lacking in originality. There really isn’t anything here that hasn’t been done better by someone else before. Still, there is focused quality in the album: Orosy’s airy performance makes 붙박이별 (Fixed Star) a nuanced and mystical solo, and there’s a healthy dose of genre variety beyond the uplifting modern-rock base of the lead single that spurred much of the above comparisons. Taken together with the gentle warmth that radiates off much of the lyrics, Wonderland becomes a pleasant enough debut effort.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. Wonderland
2. 당신을 위한 이야기 (Story for You)
3. 붙박이별 (Fixed Star)
4. Interlude
5. Stray Cat – Featuring Shoon
6. 너는 모른다 (You Don’t Know)
7. 붙박이별 (Fixed Star) – Orchestra version
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely of the reviewer and not of hellokpop as a whole.
Agree or disagree? Or have a recent release that you’d like to see reviewed? Let us know with your comments below! Requested albums will be considered each week and may be selected to be reviewed in the subsequent week.
Album Review: IU – Last Fantasy
Release: November 29, 2011
Distributor: Loen Entertainment
Rating:
Take a look at IU‘s new album. More precisely, take a look at the list of composers. It reads like a who’s who of Korea’s most celebrated ballad composers and artists: names such as Jung Suk-won, Kim Kwang-jin, Yoon Jong-shin, Lee Juck, Kim Hyun-chul, Jung Jae-hyung, and even Kim Hyung-suk grace the staff credits, joining those of younger but still-veteran composers like Ra.D and G. Gorilla. This being an IU album, of course, music by Lee Min-soo and Yoon Sang make the requisite appearances. Oh, did I mention that Corinne Bailey Rae also wrote a track?
So Loen Entertainment pulled out all the stops while producing Last Fantasy, IU’s second studio album. This is the “more is better” philosophy taken a bit over the top; by “a bit”, I mean that the top isn’t even visible anymore. If you’ve been following Loen (and in-house affiliate Nega Network) artists closely, though, you’ll notice that the label has been trying this philosophy all year long – not so much with an all-star cast of composers, maybe, but certainly so with diverse, jam-packed sounds and themes in each album. It sort of half-worked for Sunny Hill before falling flat for Brown Eyed Girls. (Zia‘s Avancer was the exception to the trend.) Not a great track record, then. Will things be different with Korea’s most eminent young artist?
Sophistry versus simplicity
First, the most important thing: the majority of Last Fantasy‘s tracks do live up to the lofty billing. Opening track 비밀 (Secret) is far and away the album’s best song: it’s a full display of Jung Suk-won’s old penchant for massive ballads, featuring expansive instrumentation and exhilarating, layered melodies. Lyricist Kim Yi-na, whom I’ve criticized before for her overindulgent lyrics, finds a perfect outlet for her nuanced, slightly off-kilter style of writing here, turning a merely pretty tale into a stunning one. This environment seems to bring out the best in IU, as well: she’s always been more of a finesse vocalist than a power one, and we haven’t had many chances to hear her seriously project. I don’t think she’s ever done it better than she does in Secret‘s breathtaking finale. There couldn’t be a more perfect track for IU or a better opening for the album.
Not to be outdone in scale, Lee Min-soo crafted lead single 너랑 나 (You And I) in a similar vein to IU’s greatest hit, 좋은 날 (Good Day): the speedy progression, bombastic string-and-brass accompaniment, and the cutesy appeal all borrow from that song. In fact, you could reasonably call it Good Day 2 and feel okay with that. You And I has a pretty strong saving grace, though, in the fact that it’s superior in every way to its predecessor (which was pretty good itself). It tones down the mood just a tad, and introduces a hint of melancholia along with more intricate, tightly-controlled instrumentation. But most saliently, the song evokes a true, enchanting wonderment. This was the missing link in Good Day‘s festive spirit: it tried to formulate the soundscape of a winter wonderland, but was a little too lighthearted to truly get there. This time, Lee Min-soo uses a range of devices, including a grandiose introduction, mesmerizing bridges, vocal distortions, and subtle, fading embellishment effects to bolster the faintly – very faintly – melancholy melody, and it works.
One reviewer even called this song the first real attempt to bring 60s’ psychedelia into the Korean mainstream, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to call You And I psychedelic, there is a good point there – this song is significant for what it attempts to do and what it does do. Even apart from the sounds, there’s plenty of nuance in themes: the idea of a girl longing for love across temporality actually has interesting psychological stakes, and while Kim Yi-na goes a little overboard like she always does, her lyrics do capture the surreality of it all.
This kind of sophistry shows up often in Last Fantasy, and it makes a number of tracks successful. Subdued pop-ballad 벽지무늬 (Wallpaper Patterns), a Yoon Jong-shin creation if there ever was one, and dramatic traditional-style ballad 별을 찾는 아이 (Star-seeking Child) both evoke multiple layers of emotion, and 사랑니 (Wisdom Tooth) mixes up lively and lonely atmospheres.
By contrast, the album’s worst track simplifies IU’s voice and character too much: 잠자는 숲 속의 왕자 (Sleeping Prince), a remake of composer Yoon Sang’s 1997 venture (it was then sung by short-lived female duo Halo), focuses way too much on the cutesy image. IU sounds like she just inhaled helium all throughout this song. The phrasing is broken and the falsetto forced, and the end result just ends up hurting the ears. It doesn’t help that Yoon unwisely decided to meddle with his composition, replacing a punchy hybrid-techno beat with a splintered, ugly synthpop one. A couple other composers also dropped the ball: Kim Hyun-chul played it a little too safe with Everything’s Alright, which has IU cruising on autopilot with a melody that’s essentially bubblegum pop supplanted into ballad, and Kim Hyung-suk contributes an elegant but entirely predictable six-minute, Disney-style ballad in eponymous track Last Fantasy.
Is IU her own artist yet?
If you’ve noticed, all this seems to minimize IU’s involvement in her own album. Essentially, what I’ve said so far is that the good songs are good because of their composer, and the bad songs are bad also because of their composer. In light of the concern that I’ve raised before, about whether IU will be able to assert herself as an independent artist – to “take center stage” – this sounds like a bad omen. And with this star-studded list of composers, perhaps it’s almost natural for a young artist to be without agency.
To be fair to IU, she does perform admirably throughout the album: Secret is an absolute tour-de-force, and I frankly can’t imagine any other artist pulling off You And I as well as IU did. In fact, in the case of 삼촌 (Uncle), she single-handedly saves a whole song. Sure, it’s fun to hear Lee Juck rap (say what you will about his Panic days, but this is just about the last thing I expected from him) and the mini-skit is amusing, but without IU’s tasteful performance, a song this bland could have gone downhill real quick.
On the flip side of that, she does make mistakes in this album. 4AM, the Corinne Bailey Rae track, is brimming with soul – the composition is excellent. Now, while IU is normally an extremely adaptable artist, she doesn’t adapt well to this one. She tries to portray a dark, drowsy psyche with unkempt singing, but it’s forced. She audibly tries too hard – a little too much un-control, too much forced angst. She still sounds decent, with that voice of hers, but the song suffers from this performance. A similar situation almost happens in L’amant, which has similarly unconventional atmosphere, but the vocals are much more honest here – she gets to be in her comfort zone more. It is worth nothing, though, that both of these are extremely difficult songs to do right.
Still, the hallmark of a truly independent artist is the ability to do the kind of music she wants, and that ability usually manifests through composition. IU does have one self-composed song here, and it’s sublime – 길 잃은 강아지 (Lost Puppy). Predictably, it relies upon acoustic guitar (along with G. Gorilla’s fantastic supplemental arrangement) to create most of its mood, which is a heavy shade of dark, and is wonderfully expressive – the murky, immaterial melody and rhythm audibly represents loss and confusion. It confirms what we’ve known for a while: IU has more than enough potential to grow into a great singer-songwriter.
But for one reason or another (perhaps because IU herself doesn’t feel ready), she’s not being given the artistic freedom. Instead, we have this situation where the show’s star is IU, as it should be, but the star can’t pick what she wants to wear. What’s more, there are 13 different designers vying for attention. Producer Cho Young-chul‘s composer-army strategy is hit-or-miss; you either get gorgeous results or flat and ill-fitting ones, and even if they’re all gorgeous, they won’t necessarily fit with each other. Fortunately, and due in no small part to the composers’ and IU’s skill, Last Fantasy came out pretty nicely overall. It just isn’t the most coherent album.
But let’s take a step back. IU is eighteen years old. No other teenage singer in the country gets anywhere near the level of scrutiny that IU does; why? Because listeners and critics alike realize that she occupies a unique position, possessing vocal prowess far beyond most of her peer group and a mature ability to interpret music her way. The very fact that this discussion of her artistry and agency is even happening is testament to how perceptions have changed. People are beginning to see IU as an artist, not “just an idol” (in the negative sense). This change coincides in a way with what we see happening within Last Fantasy: a young artist still struggling to find her footing, but slowly and surely getting there. When we look back at IU’s discography years from now, Last Fantasy won’t be seen as the album that made her an artist; it will be seen as the album that made many of us realize that she is one already.
Tracklist (recommended tracks listed in bold)
1. 비밀 (Secret)
2. 잠자는 숲 속의 왕자 (Sleeping Prince) – Featuring Yoon Sang
3. 별을 찾는 아이 (Star-seeking Child) – Featuring Kim Kwang-jin
4. 너랑 나 (You And I)
5. 벽지무늬 (Wallpaper Patterns)
6. 삼촌 (Uncle) – Featuring Lee Juck
7. 사랑니 (Wisdom Tooth)
8. Everything’s Alright – Featuring Kim Hyun-chul
9. Last Fantasy
10. Teacher – Featuring Ra.D
11. 길 잃은 강아지 (Lost Puppy)
12. 4AM
13. 라망 (L’amant)
Photo credit: maniadb
